Information Sharing and Case Conference Among the Multidisciplinary Team Improve Patients’ Perceptions of Care

BACKGROUND: As the advent of genomic technology accelerates personalized medicine and complex care, multidisciplinary care is essential for management of breast cancer. OBJECTIVES: To assess whether healthcare delivery systems are related to patients’ perceptions of care in breast cancer treatment institutions. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional nationwide study of breast cancer treatment institutions approved by the Japanese Breast Cancer Society in Japan. From 128 of the 457 institutions, 1,206 patients were included in the analysis. Each patient completed a questionnaire regarding perceptions of care that consisted of a multidisciplinary care subscale and a patient-centered care subscale. RESULTS: Multiple regression analysis revealed that the multidisciplinary care subscale was significantly related to implementation of patient-based medical record system that was paper-based (p<0.05). The results of the secondary analysis showed a significant relationship between the interdepartmental medical record system and the patient’s perception of multidisciplinary care (p<0.05) and patient-centered care (p<0.05). When a multidisciplinary case conference took place regularly or multidisciplinary viewpoints were incorporated into the conference records, the conference had a significantly higher correlation with both subscales (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Integrated patient-based information and regular multidisciplinary case conferences that include records of viewpoints from different professionals improve patients’ perceptions of comprehensive breast cancer care.